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Britain acquired Quebec from France, and East and West Florida from Spain, by the Treaty of Paris (1763), which ended the Seven Years' War. By the Treaty of Paris (1783) the United States acquired the part of Quebec south of the Great Lakes; at the same time Spain gained West Florida and regained East Florida.

In 1870, Rupert's Land was annexed to Canada as the Northwest Territories (NWT) and the new province of Manitoba. British Columbia, the British colony on the west coast north of the 49th parallel, including all of Vancouver Island, joined as Canada's sixth province in 1871, and Prince Edward Island joined as the seventh in 1873. The boundary of British Columbia with Washington Territory was settled by arbitration in 1872, and with Alaska by arbitration in 1903.

The Arctic Archipelago was ceded by Britain to Canada in 1880 and added to the Northwest Territories (NWT). Later on, large sections of the NWT were split off as new territories (the Yukon Territory in 1898 and Nunavut in 1999), or provinces (Alberta and Saskatchewan, both in 1905), or were added to existing provinces (Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec, in stages ending in 1912).

Canada became semi-independent beginning in 1867, and fully sovereign on foreign affairs beginning with the Statute of Westminster 1931. Canada gained the right to establish and accept foreign embassies, with the first one being in Washington, D.C..

Then the last vestiges of Canada's constitutional dependency upon Britain remained until Canadians from various provinces agreed on an internal procedure for amending the Canadian Constitution. This agreement was implemented when the British Parliament passed the Canada Act 1982 at the request of Parliament of Canada.[2][1]

British North America colonies

The colonies that existed before the signing of the 1846 Oregon Treaty: